Lies, damn lies, and quote mining.
Anyone who knows me, knows that I am heavily involved in the evolution/ID-creationism debates online. Even though I am no scientist, rather instead a budding historian, I am staunchly on the evolution side of the debate. However, this being said, I enjoy the back and forth discussion over evidence and have found it possible to agree to disagree peacefully with people on the other side of the debate. There is, however, one tactic used in the debate primarily by creationists, although I have seen evolution supporters use it as well, that never fails to offend me both as a historian, and as a human being. I honestly hate to single out the creationist side of the debate for the use of quote mining. However, in my participation in the debates on line, 95% of the quote mining is from the creationist side of the debate.
This tactic is quote mining. Quote mining simply is taking a snippets of a book or article radically out of context to use to support your position. Take this quote that village atheists use to tweak Christians, that the bible says “there is no god.” However, what is really said is from Psalms 14:1 “The fool says in his heart “there is no god””. The added context changes everything in that statement. Or take this quote from Charles Darwin that the notion of the evolution of the eye is absurd :
"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."
However, this is taken hugely out of context the full quote is here:
"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of Spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei ["the voice of the people = the voice of God "], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certain the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should not be considered as subversive of the theory."
What quote mining accomplishes is two things, first it sets up a false argument from authority because it has been taken so far out of context, and second it is a egregious lie by omission.
If you suspect a quote mine, here is what to look for. First, who is the quote from, any quote from Darwin, Gould, Eldredge, or Dawkins (who by the way I feel is a prick of the first order) that is talking about the weakness of the Theory of Evolution, is immediately suspect. All of the above were strong supporters of evolution, and any quote from them talking about Evolution being wrong is absurd. Next, very often when giving these quotes, there is almost never a link to the full text from which the quote is taken, or even a proper citation giving source and page number. When challenged on this the response is often “Go look it up yourself.” Umm no, that is not how it works, by doing this it appears you have something to hide.
The reason this offends me so much, is how dishonest it is. Quote mining is lying pure and simple. If you need to lie to support your arguments, the your arguments are in trouble, the run down the curtains, shuffle off this mortal coil and join the bleeding choir invisible, trouble. It also offends me as a historian because of the precedent it sets. For example, a quote miner set loose on the works of Martin Luther, could produce mis-quotes from Luther stating that the Catholic church was right all along. Also, as a up and coming historian who works a great deal with primary sources it offends me to see them used it such an un ethical manner.
I would like to thank the Talk.Origins archive for their quote mine project.
This tactic is quote mining. Quote mining simply is taking a snippets of a book or article radically out of context to use to support your position. Take this quote that village atheists use to tweak Christians, that the bible says “there is no god.” However, what is really said is from Psalms 14:1 “The fool says in his heart “there is no god””. The added context changes everything in that statement. Or take this quote from Charles Darwin that the notion of the evolution of the eye is absurd :
"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."
However, this is taken hugely out of context the full quote is here:
"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of Spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei ["the voice of the people = the voice of God "], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certain the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should not be considered as subversive of the theory."
What quote mining accomplishes is two things, first it sets up a false argument from authority because it has been taken so far out of context, and second it is a egregious lie by omission.
If you suspect a quote mine, here is what to look for. First, who is the quote from, any quote from Darwin, Gould, Eldredge, or Dawkins (who by the way I feel is a prick of the first order) that is talking about the weakness of the Theory of Evolution, is immediately suspect. All of the above were strong supporters of evolution, and any quote from them talking about Evolution being wrong is absurd. Next, very often when giving these quotes, there is almost never a link to the full text from which the quote is taken, or even a proper citation giving source and page number. When challenged on this the response is often “Go look it up yourself.” Umm no, that is not how it works, by doing this it appears you have something to hide.
The reason this offends me so much, is how dishonest it is. Quote mining is lying pure and simple. If you need to lie to support your arguments, the your arguments are in trouble, the run down the curtains, shuffle off this mortal coil and join the bleeding choir invisible, trouble. It also offends me as a historian because of the precedent it sets. For example, a quote miner set loose on the works of Martin Luther, could produce mis-quotes from Luther stating that the Catholic church was right all along. Also, as a up and coming historian who works a great deal with primary sources it offends me to see them used it such an un ethical manner.
I would like to thank the Talk.Origins archive for their quote mine project.
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